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(Episode 3: After dancing with the demons of his imagination (see issue 50) our hero finally arrives at Hadrian’s Wall. Maybe the worst is over...........but then again, maybe not). I arrived at Hadrian’s Wall at 8.00pm and decided to treat myself to a night in a camping barn next to Thirlwall Castle ruin. For a measly £3.50 I had the complete run of the place, with excellent toilet, shower, and kitchen facilities (what luxury). Best of all was the large patio window leading out to a nice garden area and fabulous views of the hills I had just spent all day walking over.
Sadly I was that knackered I could barely cook my supper, never mind appreciate my surroundings! Once again, it was an early night for me, as I wanted an early start in the morning so I could take in some of the Roman forts along Hadrian’s Wall.
I was mildly surprised at just how extensive the renovation work on the wall and remains of the ‘mile castles’ was. Although I wanted to get some miles under my belt, I couldn’t resist a detour to Vindolanda, where some of the most interesting archaeological finds concerning the Roman Empire were found as late as the 1970’s. Indeed, work is still being carried out and much excavation of the site is still going on. The Pennine Way follows the Wall for roughly six and a half miles, but there is a lot of climbing up and down craggy hills, as the Wall follows a natural ridge and there is a lot of interesting things to see. Consequently, you find that soon the day is gone, with few miles covered.
I had hoped to make it to Bellingham before dark and a campsite with a hot shower. However, I soon realised that I had no chance and resigned myself to another night in the wilderness. So, in the lee of Hadrian’s Wall I got the tent up and settled in for the night.
I was disappointed with my progress, but then I had realised a lifetime ambition to actually walk along part of Hadrian’s Wall, where thousands of years before countless legions of Romans had lived and marched across the very northern edge of their once great empire.
I was up early and on my way before the sun came up and after a mile or so climbed a stile over the Wall and continued relentlessly ever northward through Northumberland. This is wild barren country with not much to see and it’s very easy to see why the Romans stopped and built their wall here, a good 30 miles from the Scottish Border. Although there are a lot of Roman outposts between Scotland and the Wall, this area was constantly under attack from raiding parties of lawless brigands from the north (which did not end with the passing of the Romans). You can judge how tough it must have been from the odd building called a ‘Bastle House’ dating back to the 14th century, with walls 4ft. thick and tiny windows. They even had stone roofs, instead of thatch, to stop the "Rieving, Riding Scots" from burning them out. The border wars between the Scottish kings and English kings and various rich landlords continued on and off for over 200 years.
This created a wasteland. Any remaining vestige of tree cover was chopped down and cattle stolen by Rievers or ‘Moss-Troopers’ as they were called. Of course they burned all the houses as well (especially if they were poor and couldn’t afford stone dwellings). The worst part was on the English side, where the people were accused of being "wild misdemeaned" who delighted in "thefts and spoils".
I was thinking about the border wars and how hard the land looked and how much harder the people must have been when, just after the brow of a hill and another radio mast, there was Bellingham, next to the river Tyne. I felt really good about this as it was only 2pm and the beast on my back was hardly noticeable, my legs weren’t buckling and my feet were cool and comfy. Hell! I didn’t even have a sweat on and only three more days to go! "This is going to be easy", I thought to myself. One hour later, after walking around a completely deserted caravan and camping site, rattling locked doors and peering in windows, I realised it was shut. I was gutted. I had been looking at this site for nearly an hour as I walked down off the hills. It looked idyllic, nestled as it was in a small wood. I could see small clusters of wooden holiday chalets, caravans, shower and toilet block, beautiful manicured lawns (obviously for the tents, although there were none there). I wasn’t worried, as it was a weekday and a bit early in the season. Hey! And didn’t my guidebook list it as open? It also said there was a bar, Laundromat and Cafe serving hot meals! I had intended to use all three! Not a bleeding chance... totally closed. I could not see a soul. I tried phoning the place on my mobile, as I was stood outside the reception, I could hear their phone ringing. It stopped when I broke the connection. I could feel my previous euphoric mood leave my body, to be replaced by one of total disappointment. I sat down on a bench for a smoke and a think. After ten minutes of feeling sorry for myself, I had a quick look at my guidebook and decided to implement ‘Plan B’.
There was a small farm in the middle of Bellingham, I had worked myself into a feeling of great expectation and I wanted a hot shower, a toilet to sit on and a flat meadow with sheep-shorn grass on which to erect my tent. The farm opened to campers in mid-April (it was late March now). When I arrived at the farmyard, I stumbled into a full-blown father and son argument, the basis of which, as far as I could gather, was whether the old man should waste his time chopping up a badly bent gate with an angle grinder, then loading the bits into his car and driving to the scrap yard with it. The younger man, who was in his late fifties, gave me a ‘and I can’t be arsed with bloody hikers either’ look, just before turning on his wellington encased heel and trudged off to an idling quad bike. With a flourish of dirty brown coat and string, he was in the saddle and away out of the yard bellowing as loudly and aggressively as I have ever heard, what sounded like "Heeee!!! Yup, Yup Garn ya lik basta!". Whereupon, two collies came charging out of an out building and with tails between their legs and ears flat on their heads, as they drew near to the quad there was another almighty bellow of "Gerrr downya buggers!" The two handsome but scruffy dogs immediately dropped to their stomachs and half ran, half crawled after their beloved master on his quad bike.
The old man and I watched them disappear over a small hill and the exhaust of the quad (which incidentally was blowing badly) faded away. I was just about to say "Hello" to the old man when an RAF jet flew over. It was so low and so unexpected that I ducked. The old fells took no notice. "Blimey," I said, "That was low, eh?" He said they have been flying fast and low since the war with Iraq started. I asked him how we were doing and he said the Yanks have killed some more of our boys, apart from that he hadn’t given it much attention, which was pretty much the answer I got from most people I met along the way. They just weren’t that interested! I tried a different tack and said "Boring work that, cutting a big five bar gate into 1ft pieces!"
"It is when yer daft cockeyed son can’t drive a tractor and keeps backing the trailer into them!" he replied. "Anyway you can put yer tent up in that field there. It’s a bit early, so you’ll ‘ave to use the ladies showers as the gents are still being painted ready for the season proper!" The way he said "proper" suggested that I was far from proper. Anyway, he asked for a couple of quid, so I gave him four and said, "Ere y’are, get yourself a pint after!" I was surprised to find he was genuinely grateful for this small gesture and we exchanged pleasantries for another five minutes before he took me over to the nicest part of the field, which caught the early morning sun and had springy grass.
An hour later, after eating my dinner, I was having my shower when, yes you’ve guessed it, in walked two girls. "Ooher! We didn’t know we had to share with men!" one squealed and giggled. After a brief explanation from me, the other more sensible looking one, who had been looking at me as if I was a piece of dogshit on her shoe, appeared slightly pacified. So, I asked her if she would kindly pass me my tiny ‘handkerchief’ of a towel which was hung up with my clothes some three or four yards from the cubicle. "No!" she said, and the pair ran off laughing.
As I was drying myself, I could hear them laughing on the other side of the door. Upon returning to my tent, I couldn’t help noticing the complete absence of another tent. Once again I was alone in a field and the girls were never seen again.
One hour later, I was one of only two customers in a large pub on the outskirts of the town. I had walked past another three pubs on the way to this one; the reasoning behind starting at the pub farthest away from your camp is obvious to seasoned drinkers (less distance to drunkenly stagger back to your tent). Anyway, I ordered a lager at the bar, the barman was a bit put out at having been wrenched away from the fruit machine and begrudgingly served me a pint, took the money and wandered off back to the fruit machine. I looked along the bar to my fellow customer, a punky sort of a girl, mid twenties and moody. She gave me one of those "F***ing tourists!" looks that local rebels who have grown out of their small town have. I smirked and held her gaze, so she flounced off to the corner to sulk. I had to call the barman away from his flashing, hooting and bleeping fruit machine again. "Christ!" I thought, "There’s nothing worse than being with people that don’t want to be there with you!" So I asked him if he would mind if I put a few records on the JukeBox and he grunted his permission. As he poured another lager for me, I went to the JukeBox. This was a revelation, as the selection was very good and didn’t suit the general atmosphere of the place, which was cottage like, with lots of dark wood, brass and copper with a real fireplace. Someone likes good music in here, I thought. I made a clever selection, designed to impress the sulky punk and annoy the gambling barman. When the first tune came on, ‘The Temple of Love’ by the Sisters of Mercy, the punk girl grabbed her coat and left; the barman was dancing at the fruit machine and didn’t notice her passing.
I was considering another drink when a gaggle of well dressed blue rinses shuffled in and whittering away to each other, they didn’t notice me slipping out through the door and off to the next pub.
Ten minutes later, I was beginning to wish I had stayed with the old women. A very angry and drunk young man was shouting in my face. From what I gleaned from the geordie-type accent ranting away at me, I understood that he had a pathological hatred of all ramblers, whom he holds personally responsible for all the troubles and tribulations of rural England (particularly farming). I mentioned to him that technology doesn’t discriminate between townies and country folk. I said to him that you can’t put the genie back in the bottle. I reached over for a big heavy glass ashtray on the pretext of flicking my cig in it. This mad bastard was going to have a pop at me. "Well f*ck you!" I thought, "You’ll be getting a good clonk on the head!" Even as he was squaring up to me, I was checking his mates out at the bar. They were no problem; they didn’t want to know. I turned my full attention back to Jethro, who was demanding to know what the hell I meant by that last comment. Two men came up behind him, one of them gestured to me to relax, whilst the other one gave Jethro a backhander across the ear and told him to get in the back room, which he did, thank god.
A pinched faced woman with long black hair and a lot of cheap gold leaned over the bar and pointed at me and said, "I want him out now! He’s barred!" The first man, who had a rough but fair face asked me if he could buy me a pint over at the Farriers. Well, I have never been one to stay where I am not wanted, so it was off to the Farriers then.
Over a couple of pints, Ron explained to me the whole sorry tale of the youth across the road. It turns out that his dad was a good hard working farmer, who after BSE then Foot and Mouth found himself in such insurmountable debt that, with the bailiffs banging on the front door, he went out the backdoor, jumped in his Land Rover and took off. It was two months before he was seen again. He was dead, of course, found in the Kielder Forest (the biggest in Europe apparently). He had driven his Land Rover into the forest, turned off the track and gassed himself. "The fifth one this year." said Ron. I couldn’t help mentioning that he must have had a helluva job draught proofing an old Land Rover. "Aye." said Ron "I wondered that too, as the preferred method is hanging from the trees!"
After another drink and a half-hearted moan about all the things wrong with the country, I made my excuses and bid Ron goodnight. He said he was going back to collect his nephew; turns out he was the dead farmer’s brother. He shook my hand and wished me good luck. I nearly cried when I looked at his hard proud face, only his eyes gave a clue to his pain.
Just near the campsite was another pub. I thought after all the misery I deserved another pint, even if it did mean crawling out me tent every couple of hours in the night for a pee. This was a nice friendly looking place. A darts match had just finished and the locals were holding their post mortem, with much jollity and back slapping. "Win then?" I enquired of a short bookish looking man. "Yes we did." he said before turning back to his victorious compadres. They all immediately closed ranks and quite effectively shut me out. "Here we go." I thought as I sat on a stool at the bar. However, after five minutes, it soon became apparent that I had nothing to fear here. All these people, including the barman were typical middle class home counties, probably semi-retired, lured here by the cheap housing and traffic free roads. I didn’t hear one local accent in the pub. So with a maudlin mood fast approaching, I left my unfinished drink and went off to my tent and to bed.
Next morning, it was grey and cold and a bit drizzly, so I had a lie in and didn’t get moving till 10 o’clock.
I didn’t see a soul as I left Bellingham and that suited me just fine. After just one night I had had enough of this sad little town with its bitter locals and yuppie refugees!
As I climbed back up into the hills, my mood lifted and once again I was thankful to be back in the wide-open spaces of the Pennines, leaving people and their insecurities and fears behind.
When I reached the tops, a freezing cold wind was blowing and soon after it started hailstoning. This was the worst weather I had encountered so far, but I wasn’t worried as I knew that pretty soon I would be in Kielder Forest and sheltered from the bitter cold wind and stinging hailstones. Within a very short time I found myself in the middle of a very severe storm and the ground was turning into a very boggy quagmire. Also the path seemed to follow very steep ascents and descents and I fell over a couple of times.
Previously on the walk I had noticed that the less attractive parts of the Pennine Way were quite badly signposted and the path was non-existent. This part was the worst I had walked thus far. I plodded on feeling a bit sorry for myself, but kept buoyant by thinking to myself, "never mind, I will be in the forest soon and if the worst comes to the worst, I could find a clearing and put my tent up and chill out for a bit.
After what seemed like an eternity, I finally arrived at Kielder Forest, but there was no forest. I checked the map, then checked the GPS position. I even took a cross bearing with my compass. My position on the map said I should be deep in the woods, but my eyes said I was on flat featureless moorland with a forest about a mile away to my left. I decided to trust my navigational instruments rather than my instincts (which had let me down on several previous occasions). After a couple of miles and no change in the scenery or the appalling weather, I began to doubt the accuracy of my map, GPS and compass; my mind was going a bit funny as well. I ploughed on, on what was a good track, almost a road in fact. My reasoning being that it must lead somewhere. I trudged on up a slight incline for another mile until I got to the brow, then all became clear. From this vantagepoint, I could see the path winding its way down and away into the distance and finally into a dense forest.
I just couldn’t understand how my navigation could be so far out. I should have been in that forest three miles ago! What was going on here?
On the walk down I was relieved to think that in a short while I would be in the shelter of the trees and out of the bitter cold gale with occasional hailstorms. I was even relaxed enough to have a good look round at my surroundings. What I saw appalled and surprised me (and made me feel pretty stupid!) I had focused so much on reaching the relative calm and shelter of the trees and was so disappointed when it wasn’t where it should have been that I had completely overlooked the fact that this is a man made forest. Since my map had been printed (two years previous) thousands of acres of trees had been harvested. The evidence was all around, and what a mess it is!
The grim reality of modern forestry management is one of complete and utter devastation. It looked like an atom bomb had been dropped on the place. It was awfully grim and with a grey sky and bitter cold wind blowing it wasn’t the place to hang about! Luckily the way follows the forestry access roads and within an hour I was in the shelter of the trees and my grim mood picked up a bit. However any romantic thoughts I had about spending the night in an idyllic clearing in the forest were soon dashed when I tried to follow what looked like a promising path off the main road. I soon found myself knee deep in a quagmire of old branches, mud and stumps to trip over. Worse still, the trees were getting closer and closer together, so much so that at times I was on my hands and knees trying to duck under the branches. So, with my rucksack snagging and pulling me back and my feet sinking in cold foul smelling bog, I finally fell over. That was the last straw for me. I lay there bitterly disappointed, cold, tired and wet. I had had enough. So I just lay there getting wetter and colder and not really caring. After ten minutes feeling really sorry for myself, I got myself up and staggered back to the road, promising myself a hot brew once I got back on the road.
One thing I was learning on this walk was not to expect anything, then you won’t be disappointed when you don’t get it. It’s just that a clearing in the woods is such a small thing to want. I had visions of waking in the morning to the sound of birds singing, maybe the odd squirrel running about. But here, there wasn’t even a bird singing never mind a gap between the trees to pitch a tent. After a bit more stumbling and crawling the forest spat me back out onto the road where I promptly fell headfirst into a drainage ditch.
By now I was in a terrible state, completely and utterly demoralised, so much so that if there had been a mainline train station nearby I would have abandoned the walk and caught the next train home. After a couple of miles I came upon a portacabin. As I got nearer I spotted a bloke fiddling with some machinery, close to the cabin. As soon as he heard me approaching, he looked up. The look on his face was as good as a mirror and confirmed what I already thought, I was a soaking, filthy mess and my spirit was very low. Ben (he introduced himself immediately) took my rucksack off my back and guided me gently into the cabin. Two hours later everything was different again. The world was once again a beautiful place to be. Ben, although I thought of him as ‘St Christopher’, had taken my sodden, muddy clothes and put them in a drying room at the far end of the cabin. He then sat me down by a heater, wrapped a blanket round me, handed me a bowl of soup and two rounds of bread, then went to gather his tools up and tidy up round the portacabin. Half an hour later, I put the kettle on and was just pouring the water in the teapot when Ben came back in. He made a big fuss of sitting me back down again while he finished brewing the tea and producing a packet of chocolate digestives which he tastefully arranged on a tin plate. What followed was probably the best hour of the whole walk.
This man, Ben, was without a doubt the best morale booster I have ever met in my life. In what seemed like no time at all I was back up to scratch and ready to rock&roll once again. Unfortunately my next scheduled stopover, Bowes, was apparently shut. Ben told me the history of the place. It had been purpose built for forestry workers in the late 1940’s but since mechanisation had whittled the workforce down from two thousand to just twenty and the shop had shut, there really wasn’t any point to the place and most of the houses are holiday homes. There is however a youth hostel and a campsite, but unfortunately they were both shut. However, Ben told me about a magical secret spot deep in the forest, his favourite place in the world and what’s more he would take me there in his Land Rover. Brilliant or what?
While I marvelled at Ben’s off-road driving skills, I asked him about suicidal farmers. "Aye," he said, "I’ve found four in the last ten years! All hanging from trees!"
After twenty or so minutes of bouncing and struggling up near vertical slopes, not to mention huge muddy puddles, we finally arrived at a remote emergency bad weather cabin (for the workers). "Here we go then!" said Ben, "It’s about five minutes walk from here." And sure enough, it was.
After a muddy slog through trees, we stepped out into a perfect clearing, unfortunately I had about ten minutes of fading light to pitch my tent and get settled. So after Ben quickly showed my where I was on the map and showed me what path to take to Bowes in the morning, he gave me some tea, sugar and powdered milk and bade me farewell, turned on his heels and disappeared into the woods before I could thank him properly.
I started putting my tent up and was half way through it when I heard his Land Rover start up, I could hear it for the next quarter of an hour as he slowly drove his way out of the forest. "What a very nice man." I thought. Just hours before, I was nearly in tears I was that fed up. Now I was on top of the world and feeling good again thanks to a few small kindnesses from a complete stranger. What a morale booster!
I was soon lying in my tent and waiting for my nightly phone call from wife Laura. Unfortunately, there was no signal on my phone so I guess I must have fallen asleep, because next thing I remember was waking up to the sun burning my head and a rather ominous ache in my left knee.
In the early morning sun, I looked around my campsite. It truly was a beautiful spot with panoramic views all around. There was a babbling brook with a small waterfall and a large tree stump with chair sized rocks around it, which I was able to sit at and eat my breakfast. It was so tranquil that I felt it would be rude of me to pack up and leave straight away, so I hung about for a couple of hours before packing up. Even so, I was very reluctant to leave, but I needed to get to Bowes and buy some food. As I shrugged the Beast of a rucksack on my back, that ache in my left knee turned into a sharp pain (not good!) I was thankful of my walking poles. Ben’s directions proved to be spot on and the path was very good walking, but with every turn I couldn’t help thinking that at any moment I might walk into a half decomposed farmer gently swinging by the neck from a tree.
Despite these morbid thoughts, it was still a very pleasant walk into Bowes and with no warning at all, I stepped out of the forest and into a small hamlet of about one hundred and fifty houses. Although all the houses looked occupied, there wasn’t a soul about. All that was needed was some tumbleweed blowing across the road to complete the picture of a ghost town. After finding the main road I made my way to a petrol station that had a Cafe. By now my knee was throbbing steadily and I considered taking a day’s rest. After a good meal in the cafÈ, I enquired of the waitress if there was a campsite nearby. There was and just a couple of miles up the road, so I set off with a stiffening knee and thoughts of a hot shower.
Of course, when I got there it was shut! Nevertheless, I knocked on the office door and with fingers crossed behind my back, I tried to look haggard and done in, in the hope that whoever answered would feel sorry for me. I needn’t have worried. The young man that opened the door for me listened to my brief tale of woe and, after looking me up and down, led me off to a small camping barn. On the way he explained that he was just in the middle of fitting a new kitchen and so there was no cooking facilities, however the heating was on and there was plenty of hot water for a shower; there was a pub about a mile further up the road that did meals. After a quick shower, I changed into my clean clothes and was just setting off to the pub when the owner turned up with a tubigrip bandage for my knee; he wouldn’t take any money for it, nor would he take any money for the bed either. Once again I was completely overwhelmed by the kindness of a complete stranger.
The pub was empty, except for a large black cat lying half-asleep on the bar. "A pint of lager please, cat!" I said. "Won’t be a second!" Said the cat without moving its lips?
Twenty seconds later, the real owner of the voice (and the pub) popped his head up from behind the bar......
(to be continued)
(With the end of his sojourn almost in sight surely it must be easy going from now on.....................Who knows.........?
Well I certainly don’t cause the bugger’s not written the final bit yet! But rest assured he will have it done for the next issue or we’re sending him back to Bellingham for a month!)
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